


Beauty Walks a Razor's Edge

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Laszlo Loses the Beard, M/M, Shaving, Shaving Kink, Stalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 22:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17272538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: “It isn’t absurd,” John protests. “You can’t be followed if he can’t recognize you.”Laszlo’s dark eyes sparkle up at him, amused, indulgent. “And just how shall I disguise myself? Rub ashes into my face and dress as a vagabond?”“Not at all.” John thinks now in earnest, considering with a keen artist’s eye the contours of Laszlo’s soft features -- the answer is so simple. “A shave would suffice.”





	Beauty Walks a Razor's Edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misanthropiclycanthrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropiclycanthrope/gifts).



> Tagging on mobile sucks, I'll do a better job later.
> 
> Title from Bob Dylan lyrics.
> 
> This is honestly an absurd excess of plot just to write some bad shaving kink.

John doesn’t notice it at first -- the hole punched into the ground-level window of the East 17th Street brownstone, a jagged wound in the square of leaded glass. He mounts the steps two at a time to ring Kreizler’s bell, stamping his feet and shuffling in the winter chill as he waits.

It is Laszlo himself who answers the door, the soft fall of his hair curling over his brow and a distant frown marring his features. “John,” his eyes, mellow and coffee-colored in the grey afternoon light, seem to flit everywhere. Badly distracted. “I’m so sorry, I’d forgotten you were coming -- we’ve had something of a mishap today.” He grimaces. “Please. Come inside.”

Early December has brought with it the first, fine coatings of snow that follow John into the foyer of Laszlo’s home, leaving a dusting of fast-melting flakes in a trail of bootprints along the carpeting.

“Is everything all right, Laszlo?” John shucks his overcoat and hat, leaving them to drip from the coat rack. “You seem --” And he trails off as he follows Kreizler into the study, takes in the sight of Stevie wielding dustpan and brush. The broken glass scattered like fallen stars across the Persian rug.

“Watch your step, Mister Moore,” Stevie cautions from where he crouches amidst the shards. “This gets ground into the carpet it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to clean up.”

There is a rush of frigid air that curls through the room, sets the tendrils of fire in the grate to guttering wildly. And then John spots the good-sized hole in the front window.

“Just what the devil happened here?” he demands, shifting aside to make way for Cyrus who shuffles into the study with a roll of canvas and a toolbox.

Laszlo makes a face, one of his self-deprecating, amused little grimaces, kneeling with Stevie to pluck the largest shards of the window pane from the carpet. “Is nothing you need concern yourself over,” he assures John, gathering the fractures of glass in the palm of his weak hand. “A brick came through the window. That is all.”

“Oh, _that’s all,_ is it?” John’s eyebrows leap for his hairline.

“Yes.”

“Someone’s throwing bricks through your windows and you want to tell me it’s nothing to be concerned with?”

John watches the tense curve of the alienist’s shoulders, the careful work of his slim fingers sorting through the carpet fibers to pluck out the largest slivers of glass. He wants to take him in his arms, draw him up and shake some sense into him.

Instead, he moves to help Cyrus unroll the canvas sheeting, holding it in place over the window pane. “When should I be concerned? When whoever’s done this decides to aim for your head instead of a glass pane?”

Laszlo empties his handful of broken glass into the dustpan, the cupid’s bow of his mouth set into a thin, unhappy line. And he makes one last pass of his palm across the patterned surface of the Persian rug, setting everything to rights again, smoothing it all back into neatness.

“Ach!” The sharp edge of a stray shard bites into the softness of his fingers. “Scheiße!”

Instinctively, John reaches for him as, cursing, Laszlo lurches to his feet -- tucking the hand with bright red blood welling between his fingers close to his chest.

“It’s fine. Is nothing,” Laszlo insists, sticking the offended, bloody finger into his mouth. And he turns on his heel, disappearing from the study in search of bandages -- still muttering curses as he goes.

For a long moment, they say nothing. There is only the sound of Cyrus’s hammer driving nails into the window frame. And then Cyrus straightens up, smooths his big hands over the canvas sheeting one last time and says “this is the second time in a month.”

John says “you can’t be serious.”

Cyrus shrugs.

“It’s on the desk.” Stevie nods in the direction of Kreizler’s massive, paper-strewn desk when John blinks at him uncomprehendingly. “The brick what came through the window -- and the note attached to it.”

John finds the brick, a brutal sort of paperweight, sitting on top of the note written in a scrawling, near illegible hand. The threat is clear. “ _Something of a mishap_ ,” he mutters, shaking his head. For Laszlo to be so foolish…

He finds the man fighting with a roll of bandages, struggling to secure a knot around his bleeding finger.

“Here,” John urges, cover Laszlo’s trembling hands with his own. “Let me.”

Laszlo scowls, jaw set, but does not protest. John is gentle, careful as he winds the bandage. He smooths his thumb over the softness of Laszlo’s palm, seals his ministrations with a feather-light kiss.

“John --”

“Who wrote it?”

A sigh. “There is no need --”

“Laszlo. Enough.” John squeezes his wrist, insistent. Impossible to make Laszlo see, to get him to understand. “Someone _threatened_ you.”

“It is not the first time, John.” And then Laszlo does look at him, exhausted, weary-eyed. “It won’t be the last. You know this.”

“But this? This is --” Fumbling for the words, John takes him by the shoulders, draws him in close. Touches his cheek. “Laszlo, to read that was horrifying. The detail… at least consult with Sara and the Isaacsons?”

Laszlo sighs, tight-lipped. “The perpetrator was a former patient of mine. He is _disturbed_ , John -- I know the content of the letter was frightening, but the man should be in an institution, not the hands of the police.”

“Not the police,” John insists. “Our friends. Just -- see what they have to say?”

Grudgingly, Laszlo agrees. 

* * *

 

“You’ve lost your mind, Doctor Kreizler” is the pronouncement Sara makes, standing with her hands on her hips. She surveys the study, John and Laszlo standing close, Lucius frowning with the letter held close to his nose, Marcus prowling curiously around the broken window.    

Laszlo, affronted, proclaims “I am being _perfectly_ reasonable, Miss Howard. The author of that note is a former patient, recently released from psychiatric care. He suffers from delusions, significant paranoia -- I recommended his care to the asylum. It is natural that now his notions of persecution have fixated on my person as the source of his ills.”    

“But, Doctor…” Lucius hesitates, still unwilling to contradict Kreizler. “A brick through your window -- the letter -- regardless of the mental state of your patient, it's still a threat to be taken seriously.”    

From the window, Marcus chimes in “his aim may get better and next time it won’t be a window that gets broken.”    

John rounds on Laszlo with a significant look, brows raised. _Now do you see?!_     

Still, Laszlo is relentless in his stubbornness. “Be that as it may, no real crime has occurred here and I would not throw the perpetrator to the law knowing his condition.”

“ _Oh_ ,” John whirls on him then, exasperated. “So you'd rather have your skull smashed in?” What a terrible thought -- the brilliant, beloved head shattered, the brains unspooled. John shudders from the image.

Sara does not hesitate to add, scathing. “You're being unreasonable, Doctor Kreizler.”

From Lucius comes the offer “we could take this to Commissioner Roosevelt...”

Marcus is already aboard his brother’s train of thought. “My brother and I wouldn't be missed -- we could easily provide a police presence in the vicinity and, if another incident does occur, be certain that he is remanded to the asylum instead of a prison cell.”

There is a long silence from Laszlo, his eyes dark. Contemplating.

“Consider it, Laszlo.”

A sigh. “Very well. Surveillance around the house, if you must -- but not the Institute. I will not have my student's routines disrupted by this.” It's as much of a concession as he will ever make.

John leaves him to the mercy of Sara and the Isaacsons with their new plans, finds Cyrus in the kitchen.

“Stevie and I can look after the Doctor, if that's what you're worrying about,” the big valet insists mildly when John requests that the guest bedroom be prepared. “I wouldn't let anything happen to him.”

“I know,” John assures him. “I know that, it's just…” _I love him. If anything were to happen_ …

Cyrus, sharp as he is, requires no explanations. “You really want the guest room made up?” He raises a knowing eyebrow.

John chuckles. “No. I suppose not.” There is no point, really, when he will curl around Laszlo in his large four-poster anyway.

“I have been threatened before, John,” Laszlo reminds him softly when 283 East 17th Street is dark and silent, after John has kissed every inch of him pliant and tender. He tucks his head into John's shoulder, the fingers of his good hand playing idly over John's broad chest. “For my work I am threatened nearly every day. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last.”

John hates it.    

Hates it even more when Laszlo admits, low and without emotion “he has followed me -- from here to the Institute and back again.”    

“ _Laszlo_.”    

“Stevie manages easily enough to lose him with the calash, but --” Laszlo shifts. “I am tired, John. It is a risk -- even moreso than usual now -- for me simply to walk the city streets.”    

John ruffles his hair, tucks him in close. “You ought to have said something sooner, should have gone to the police long before this. I know,” he cuts off Laszlo’s protests with a squeeze “how you feel about the methods of New York’s finest. But, Roosevelt, the Isaacsons, Sara? We’re here to _help_ you, Laszlo.”

And Laszlo does know; but the knowledge does not make asking -- make needing help -- taste any less bitter.

“This can’t go on,” John persists. “You can’t keep this up, Laszlo, you’re in real danger. Something has to be done -- if you’re being followed...”

Laszlo sighs. “What would you have me do, John? I’ll not shirk my duties to my patients, to the children at the Institute -- I will not _hide_ simply because one man has threatened me.”

“A disguise, then.”

Laszlo snorts disingenuously. “You’ve been reading too many of those penny dreadfuls the Times has had you illustrating. A disguise? Don’t be absurd.”

“It isn’t absurd,” John protests. “You can’t be followed if he can’t recognize you.”

Laszlo’s dark eyes sparkle up at him, amused, indulgent. “And just how shall I disguise myself? Rub ashes into my face and dress as a vagabond?”

“Not at all.” John thinks now in earnest, considering with a keen artist’s eye the contours of Laszlo’s soft features -- the answer is so simple. “A shave would suffice.”

“I beg your pardon?” Laszlo bolts upright in bed, scowling deeply.

“Consider it,” John insists, propping himself up on his elbows. He reaches out, captures Laszlo’s chin. “You’ve worn a beard since we were midway through Harvard, shave and you’d be unrecognizable.”

“Yes,” Laszlo agrees, glowering at John’s offending hand. “Because I will look like an utter fool.”

“You will not.” He coaxes Laszlo back into his arms, traces his thumb along the curve of his cheekbone. “A week -- maybe two at most for the Isaacsons to apprehend this man, and it will grow back.”

Laszlo grouses, unconvinced.

“Think on it.” 

* * *

 

He does.

John is scraping the last of the lather from his face in the mirror when Laszlo appears behind him, silent and solemn as a ghost. Kreizler’s expression is grim -- a man prepared for execution.

“You'll have to do it,” is his singular pronouncement, quietly dismayed by resigned to the notion. As much a request for help as Laszlo can manage, an unhappy concession to his own limitations, to the logic of John's proposal.

In the face of Laszlo's grim resolve, John forces himself to suppress his smile -- still can't help the softness in his heart, the fondness that warms his eyes. Laszlo will make it sound like an unfortunate necessity, but the unspoken trust -- his certainty John will care for and _care_ _for_ him -- is implicit.

And he will. John always will. He has pulled Laszlo from a hundred fights and patched him up afterwards, has been a balm for Laszlo’s sore heart and troubled mind in the darkest hours. They have always taken care of one another, in the end, and there have never been any words needed between them.

“All right.” There is a smile in John’s voice, a warmth when he catches his knuckles beneath Laszlo’s chin to tilt his head up, stroking the pad of his thumb through the thickness of the dark beard that has so defined Laszlo’s appearance. “All right, come here -- and stop looking at me like that.”

Laszlo -- all stiff limbs and wary eyes -- allows himself to be maneuvered into position. He juts out his lower lip, careful to keep his head still in John’s gentle grip. “And just how am I looking at you?”

John releases him to gather up his brush and scuttle mug, noting the clear flicker of anxiety in Laszlo’s jasper eyes, the way he rolls his shoulders and stands up straighter the moment John swathes the first stripe of lather across his cheek. “Like you’re frightened.”

It is half-teasing, half a challenge.

Sparks flash in Laszlo’s eyes, a fight kindling. “I am no such thing.”

John harrumphs, an amused little sound, pleased by how easy it is to make Laszlo bristle with pride. “Good.”

A quick kiss, pressed to Kreizler’s nose, and then John takes the razor in hand, draws the first slow, steady pass down the curve of Laszlo’s cheek.

He flinches.

“Shhh.” John scrapes the razor along his jaw, careful. Soothing. “Stay _still_. That was almost your ear.”

Laszlo -- heart hammering -- goes so still he scarcely breathes.

Another pass of the razor. Another inch of the soft, fair skin bared; all freckled and pink with new sensitivity.

John wipes the razor clean, eyes the beginnings of his handiwork.    

In the beginning -- at the start of their college days -- he had known Laszlo bare-faced and youthful. A boy with fierce eyes and sharp words and something fragile still twisted up in the corners of his mouth.    

Strange, to see so much of Laszlo revealed again.    

 _Wonderful_.    

The razor glides and Laszlo _gasps_ \-- a soft sound, full of emotion -- at the caress of it. The kiss of cool air against flushed, tender cheeks. And John. Warm and solid and so very close, the pads of his fingers ghosting against Laszlo’s skin, taking care. His eyes, keen and golden, are intent -- deeply focused -- and Laszlo has never been the subject of such an intense and gentle scrutiny.    

John chases away the leftover tracks of lather with the edge of the towel, leans in to kiss Laszlo’s bare cheek in the wake of it.    

“ _Oh_.”    

What a fragile, tremulous noise.    

There is no denying how much it affects John -- all the minute revelations of Laszlo’s face revealed with each pass of the razor, the quiet sounds that escape him, the fists clenching uselessly at his sides. To be the only one allowed to know the alienist at his most vulnerable.

“Stick out your chin.” His voice is hoarse, catches at the back of his too-dry throat.

Laszlo complies, purses his lips for John to draw the razor along the curve of his chin, to pass the blade over his upper lip with slow, infinite care. He is crumbling in John’s arms, heavy eyelids drifting closed.

The slow drag of a thumb across his lower lip, gathering away the stray soap-lather and then John is kissing him again. And it is strange -- to kiss, to be kissed -- without the soft rasp of beard and moustache. Nothing between them but softness and vulnerable skin-on-skin.

It's shocking, really, when John pulls away to study the full effect of his work. Here is Laszlo, the university student with the perpetual glower and blistering passion for his ideas. Here is Laszlo, the alienist with the tired eyes and the sadness around his mouth; mellowed slightly by time, but no less brilliant.

A stranger, and yet so familiar John would know every version of him without question.

He tips Laszlo's head back then, bares his throat to shave away the last narrow strip of hair and lather. The blades traces its way along Laszlo's neck, skates over the delicate skin stretched over jugular and carotid. Dangerous, this. One last exercise in trust.

Laszlo’s breath hitches, eyelashes fluttering soft over his cheekbones.

They are both hard, pressed so close together and breathing in each other's warmth. And every detail seems cast in sharp relief; the bite of cologne, the flecks of soap still clinging to Laszlo's cheek, the yielding of flesh and John's broad, gentle hands upon his waist.    

“Well.” Half-concerned and half-undone, Laszlo raises a wry brow. Traces the fingers of his good hand around the contours of his naked jaw. “How bad is it? Be honest.”    

“Beautiful” John proclaims, full of feeling, as he gathers Laszlo into his arms. Murmurs soft words into the tender spot at the hinge of his jaw. “You have always been beautiful, Laszlo.”    

Laszlo scoffs. The words are so much noise and nonsense from a man besotted -- he is the furthest thing from beautiful.    

John abandons his efforts to kiss every square inch of Laszlo's stubborn, sweet face to scrutinize him. “You don’t believe me?”    

Blushing, Laszlo averts his gaze. Interesting, without the beard, to see just how fully the flush warms his fair skin. “Of course I don’t.” And, even as he turns away he finds his eyes straying to the mirror. Shocking, the sight of this newly foreign self. “I look like a fool.”    

John will not stand for that. In one smooth movement he has his hands hooked around Laszlo's thighs, hauling him up, pinning him against the bathroom door. Laszlo, startled, hooks his long legs around John's waist. Holding on, clinging close. “If you’re a fool,” John demands to know with a slow roll of his hips “then what exactly does that make me?”

Laszlo grins. “An even greater fool.”    

John cannot help it -- he is forever charmed by the private humor, the dry amusement and affection in Laszlo's serious eyes. Laughing, he kisses him again. 

* * *

 

They barely manage to be presentable when Cyrus raps politely on the doorframe, informs him that Miss Howard and the Detectives Isaacson have arrived. John scrambles to tuck in his shirttails, Laszlo hastening to button up his trousers, straighten his cravat.

In the study, the Isaacsons voices rise and fall at a rapid clip -- arguing, debating, haranguing one another in tetchy Yiddish. Occasionally, Sara’s stern voice breaks in, colored with faint amusement.

Laszlo smooths his over-long hair, admonishing the prickle of anxiety that squeezes behind his breastbone.       

“-- you know I said --”    

“And I’m telling you, you’re -- oh, hello.” Lucius, blinking behind his spectacles, proclaims half-shocked “Oh! Doctor Kreizler!”

“Indeed.”    

He feels keenly the weight of Sara’s widened eyes on him, curious. It takes everything in Laszlo -- all the hard lessons learned and the fierce, stubborn pride in him -- not to shrink, embarrassed beneath her scrutiny.    

“Well.” Sara purses her lips, struggling for the words. What a strange sight, the indomitable Doctor Kreizler looking so much softer -- so oddly vulnerable -- without his whiskers. “I believe this will be quite an effective disguise after all, Doctor Kreizler.”    

Unconscious, Laszlo touches his own face, lingering over the smoothness there. “Thank you, Miss Howard.” And let that be it. Let no more be said about him. “I trust the three of you will be conscientious in your apprehension of my harasser?”    

“Of course.” Sara speaks softly, faintly bemused by all of it.

This time, there is no one to follow Laszlo on his way to the Institute. Whether it is a result of the change of face, or of John’s insistent presence at his side, he cannot say for certain. The youngest of his students pat his bare face with curious, questing fingers when he crouches among them. There are questions, curious comments. Laszlo does not mind the inquries of the children -- it’s the curious looks from colleagues, peers, acquaintances that set him on edge.

The man is caught three days later, apprehended by Marcus in the narrow alley along the side of the house, and remanded to Bellevue. Laszlo’s jaw is already bristly with new stubble.


End file.
